The sharp drop in public pharmaceutical expenditure in Spain in the first four months of 2012 serves as a warning for the continuation of a fall in spending on medicines in the remainder of the year. BMI notes that this does not bode well for drugmakers selling their products in Spain as the success of the implemented policies may encourage the enforcement of further cost-containment measures, which, together with the ongoing public hospital debt situation, seriously hampers the country's attractiveness as a location in which to sell drugs, despite its favourable demographic characteristics.

Headline Expenditure Projections

Pharmaceuticals: EUR20.15bn (US$28.00bn) in 2011 to EUR18.34bn (US$23.30bn) in 2012; -9.0% in local currency terms and -16.8% in US dollar terms.

Healthcare: EUR104.99bn (US$145.93bn) in 2011 to EUR105.51bn (US$133.99bn) in 2012; +0.5% in local currency terms and -8.2% in US dollar terms.

Medical devices: EUR4.32bn (US$6.01bn) in 2011 to EUR4.35bn (US$5.52bn) in 2011; +0.7% in local currency terms and -8.0% in US dollar terms.

Risk/Reward Ratings: Pharmaceutical Risk/Reward Ratings (RRRs) for Q412, Spain is ranked eight among the 10 countries surveyed in Western Europe. While Spain offers investors positive factors, such as its large drug market, it also has problems, such as the government's focus on cost containment, low population growth, cumbersome bureaucracy and provincial differences regarding drug regulations and reimbursement.

Competitive Landscape

The Competitive Landscape section provides comparative company analyses and rankings by US$ sales and % share of total sales - for the total pharmaceutical sector, as well as the OTC, generics, and distribution sub-sectors.